About me

This blogname was derived from the novel The Secret Life Of Saeed The Pessoptimist by the Palestinian Israeli Emile Habiby: absurdism as weapon against the (ir)realities of daily life in Palestine/Israel. (The subtitle is from a book by Dutch author Renate Rubinstein. It could as well be my motto).
My real name is Martin (Maarten Jan) Hijmans. I've been covering the ME since 1977 and have been a correspondent in Cairo. I started my 'Abu Pessoptimist' blog in January 2009 out of anger during the onslaught in Gaza. The other one, The Pessoptmist, is meant to be a sister version in English. (En voor de Nederlandstaligen: ik wilde in november 2009 een tweede blog in het Engels beginnen en ontdekte te laat dat als je één account hebt, een profiel dan meteen ook voor allebei de blogs geldt. Vandaar dat het nu ineens in het Engels is... So sorry.)

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Israel demolishes houses and restaurant in Jerusalem and five Bedouin dwellings east of the city

The destroyed part of the restaurant in Beit Safafa.

Israeli bulldozers under army escort on Thursday demolished three
Palestinian structures built without construction permits in the
Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan and Beit Safafa, the owners told Ma'an.
Nadia Abu Diab said that Jerusalem municipality
excavators tore down a two-story building and unfinished apartment
belonging to her family in Silwan in occupied East Jerusalem.She
said the 125-square meter apartment had been under construction since
September last year, and that her family had been in the process of
obtaining a license. She said the Jerusalem municipality demolished the
apartment without prior notice.
Separately, in Beit
Safafa, a Palestinian neighborhood divided between East and West
Jerusalem, Israeli bulldozers demolished part of a restaurant belonging
to local resident Imad Burqan. Burqan told Ma'an the
Jerusalem municipality demolished an extension of the Mediterranean
Restaurant made of tin sheets and steel bars that he had added to the
building about three months ago.Construction licenses are
very expensive and difficult to obtain for Palestinians, notably in the
Jerusalem area, in a bid by Israeli authorities to force Palestinians
out and change the demographic balance of the city.
On Wednesday morning Israel demolished five dwellings housing
Palestinian Bedouin families in the Abu Nuwwar community east of
Jerusalem -- part of the wider E1 corridor -- leaving 25 people homeless.
Dawood al-Jahalin, a spokesperson for the Abu
Nuwwar Bedouin community, told Ma'an that Israeli military and police
vehicles surrounded the area at around 8:30 a.m., before bulldozers
demolished five dwellings and an agricultural structure.The
families were not given any time to remove their belongings before the
dwellings -- made of steel, wood, and canvas -- were torn down, he said.
Abu Nuwwar is one of several Bedouin villages facing forced evacuation
due to plans by Israeli authorities to build thousands of homes for
Jewish-only settlements in the E1 corridor.